


Bad Luck

by accurst_writer



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Clato Ship Week, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26751280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accurst_writer/pseuds/accurst_writer
Summary: Clato Ship Week day one - AUA soulmate AU where the nickname your soulmate calls you appears on your arm when you turn 15. No-one else can see it until you die.It was just their luck that it had to be each other.
Relationships: Cato/Clove (Hunger Games)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	Bad Luck

“Hey, Hadley!”  
Cato Hadley looked up from his breakfast just in time to see his best friend, Clove Kentwell, drop herself onto the seat next to him. Ignoring her cereal bowl, she turned to him. 

“So?”  
He played dumb just to annoy her. Their relationship was built on teasing.   
“So what?”  
She swatted at his arm gently.   
“So, it’s your birthday. Which means...”  
She trailed off, glaring at him.  
“Wow, you just want to know what my arm says? I don’t even get a “happy birthday” from you?”

Clove nodded and started stuffing her face with cereal.   
“Fine, I’ll tell you. But it’s nothing interesting. It’s just my last name.”

She finished the mouthful she was chewing and dropped her spoon back into her bowl casually.   
“That is interesting, though. It means it’s probably someone here.”  
Cato chuckled. “Yeah, which means it could be literally anyone. And it also means, unless I die in the Games, I’ll be spending my life with someone who calls me by my last name. Not exactly romantic, is it?”

Clove swatted his shoulder again at his suggestion that he could die in the games. “Shut up, you’re basically guaranteed that victory.”  
He rolled his eyes.   
“Sure I am, Clover.”  
They continued eating, with the occasional argumentative jab at each other between mouthfuls.

The next year, Clove’s 15th birthday was also the day of the Reaping. Normally that didn’t bother her. But not this year. The day before the Reaping, the girl who was supposed to volunteer had got injured. Enobaria had suggested that Clove replace her. Going into the 74th Hunger Games. Against Cato.

Clove and Cato chatted throughout training like they did every day.   
“Did you hear that Aquila got injured?”  
“Yeah. I asked who was going to replace her, but Brutus kept avoiding the question. I want to know who I’m going to be allies with!”

Clove sighed. Brutus was avoiding the question for a good reason. Cato might refuse to volunteer if he knew Clove was going in. So, she tried to keep their usual teasing banter going. Cato didn’t need to know. 

She didn’t even want to look at her arm on her birthday. What if it told her that her soulmate was someone that she’d leave behind in Two? What if it was someone in the Games? She had to know. She braced herself. She was prepared for it to just say “Kentwell”. She was prepared for it to say anything. 

“Clover”

Well, anything except for that.   
Working automatically, she got up, pulled some leggings and a t-shirt out of her cupboard, remembered it was Reaping day, pulled out a dress, and was half-way to Cato’s dorm before she stopped to think. What was she going to say, “hey, you know how you’re the only one who calls me Clover? Well, I’ve got some news.”

Besides, they were going into the arena together. He wouldn’t want to know that he’d have to kill his soulmate. 

She was about to turn and leave when Cato opened the door.   
“Clover!”  
She cringed internally at his use of her nickname.  
“Hi!”  
“What are you doing here?”  
She couldn’t tell him.   
“I came to tell you good luck. Which I’m sure you’ll need, you dumbass.”

Cato pretended to look affronted. “Okay, don’t be rude. Have you eaten yet?”  
She shook her head and Cato offered to walk with her down to breakfast.   
“So, what’s your arm say?” Cato asked through the bite of toast in his mouth. 

Clove quickly focussed on cutting the bacon on her plate (Reaping day breakfasts were always nice) and tried to think of a logical answer.   
“My last name. Like everyone else gets.”

Cato shrugged, before mimicking Clove’s voice. “Well, that means it’s someone here, I guess.”  
She chuckled, and tried to change the topic. “So, are you nervous?”  
He tore off a strip of toast with his teeth and stuffed it into his mouth.  
“About the Games? No way. I’ve got this.”

In District 2’s Reaping, boys were called first, so Cato had already volunteered and was standing up on stage when they asked if there were any female volunteers. He caught a glimpse of Clove in the crowd. She looked at him sadly, and he understood what she was about to do a split second before she raised her hand and spoke.   
“I volunteer as tribute.”

The pre-games section went by very quickly. Cato was still trying to comprehend that he was going to be in an arena with Clove.   
In the interviews, Ceaser Flickerman asked people if they had found their soulmate. As was usual for a bunch of teenagers, no-one had. He didn’t bother asking the small girl from Eleven, as she was too young to have her mark yet, and he was too busy complimenting the girl from Twelve’s dress to ask her. 

The boy from Twelve, however, blushed and looked away, when asked.   
“Well, actually, Ceaser, I think I have. But I don’t think she knows. Until the Reaping, I don’t think she even knew that I exist.”  
“Well, you go win this thing, go home, and she’ll have to be ecstatic that she’s your soulmate!”  
He shook his head.   
“I don’t think that’s going to help in my case.”  
“Why?”  
“Because... my soulmate came here with me.”

Up in their apartment, watching the rest of the interviews, Cato and Clove burst out laughing. “How obviously fake!”  
“Yeah, I bet she didn’t even know he was going to say that.”

Internally, however, Clove wondered if the pair from Twelve were soulmates. After all, there was another pair of soulmates in the Games. Not that anyone knew that, other than her. 

In the arena, Glimmer was trying to cuddle up to Cato.   
“You never know, we might even be soulmates! Just let me sleep here.”   
She leaned her head onto his shoulder.   
Clove and Marvel both rolled their eyes.   
“Is she for real?” Whispered Clove.   
Marvel nodded. “Yeah. She’s just like that.”  
Cato stared at them both across the fire, and mouthed “Save me, Clover.”  
Clove grinned and stuck her tongue out at him instead. 

Cato held Clove’s body close to him. Tears were threatening to leak from his eyes. She had been his only friend for as long as he’d known her. Carefully, gently, he laid her down on the ground, still clutching tightly to one of her hands. He knew she couldn’t be saved, but he refused to let go of her hand until the hovercraft came.   
Eventually, he remembered he had to leave for the hovercraft to arrive. He told himself that Clove would have hated the indignity of being dead on screen for any longer than she had to be. 

Shakily, Cato leaned to kiss her hand one last time, to brush her hair away from her face, and to say his final goodbye to her. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the writing on her arm. Of course. You can’t see someone else’s mark until they’re dead. 

He barely bothered to look, after all, he knew what it said. She told him, the morning of the Reaping. He still glanced at it, however, feeling sorry for whoever was her soulmate that they’d never know her.   
But it didn’t say “Kentwell”.

It said “Clover”.

“No. No fucking way. No!” He gasped, reading it again and again, trying to make sure he wasn’t reading it wrong. Only he called her that. No-one else had ever called her that. It all clicked in his brain as he realised. The reason Clove hadn’t told him that she was volunteering until the day. The reason she’d been outside his dorm on her birthday. Maybe she’d wanted to tell him but decided to lie. 

Between the sobs that wracked his body, he choked out a quiet “I’m sorry.” 

Securing his hand around the handle of one of her knives, Cato pushed himself to his feet. He was going to kill Eleven for killing his soulmate. Clove’s death, and the realisation that she was his soulmate, was enough to push him over the edge. He noticed he may not be entirely sane any more. Discovery after discovery may have driven him to distraction. But when you’re one half of a soulmate pair and the only person you love is dead, who cares?


End file.
